Von Balthasar explores the main streams of metaphysics which have developed since the `catastrophe' of Nominalism, with its denial of the divine light in creation. Three paths have been taken, each with its own dangers. In a series of studies of representative mystic theologians, philosophers and poets, glory is traced through such figures as Eckhart, Ignatius, de Sales; the attempt to relocate theology in a recovery of antiquity's sense of being and beauty through figures like Holderlin, Goethe, Heidegger; the metaphysics of spirit through Descartes, Spinoza and the Idealists.